


Criminally Insane

by bunnybrook



Category: The LEGO Movie (2014)
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Psychiatric Abuse, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 13:01:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5291840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnybrook/pseuds/bunnybrook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Business is out of the hospital and calls Bad Cop every night. Post movie. Angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

On the day that Briar Robert Business was released from Brickman’s Hospital he was chaired out into the hall, asked if he needed a ride back to his long empty apartment and, when he declined, was left alone for the first time in months. He would up walking back to his apartment, all four miles in the open air. No one stopped him. A few people stared. The hospital band still weighed down his wrist while the other floated up and away to pull at his hair which had grown long in the past few months.

They had told him it would two weeks in there, tops, but he had wound up staying for four months. The reason he got was that he never behaved, that he didn’t participate, that despite his work and his efforts there was just too much damage to be undone and he couldn’t heal fast enough. He was on four different kinds of medication now, a mood stabilizer, an antipsychotic, an antidepressant and a sedative for the evenings when he found he couldn’t sleep. The antipsychotic was white and the first thing they prescribed. The rest of the pills were blue and came after that.

In front of his door was a pile of magazines. A few had his face on the cover, photos from his presidency and from when they had taken him away, into the hospitals, on one there was a page thirty sort of story, hidden between Emmet’s crusades and the new rise of the Master Builders. On some it didn’t seem apparent what they had to do with him but a quick flip through the table of contents would show that there was an article about him in there somewhere.

There were maybe fifty of them. Fifty magazines. He swallowed nausea and opened his door. He sat on his couch. His stuff was still here. They hadn’t kicked him out. He technically owned the building but he wasn’t sure if that was the case anymore.

With nothing better to do Briar brought the magazines into his apartment, dropping them ten at a time onto his coffee table. He stopped, the rearranged them into three, almost perfectly even stacks. He then arranged each stack by title, putting one aside to read through when he was done. It was a popular magazine in Bricksburg but no where else. His scared looking face was on the cover, zoomed in and enhanced from when they told him he was going to be taken away. He remembered the flashes as they took him out into the ambulance, closing the doors behind him before anyone could take any more photographs.

He breathed in and out. He found his phone charger and plugged the device in. One of the conditions of his discharge was that he wouldn’t engage with media discussing him or his illness. He would avoid major news channel, cancel his newspaper subscription, stay off the internet. Briar opened the magazine. The headline read ‘Criminally Insane’. He felt sick to his stomach.

When he was younger Briar had had a large group of friends. What enterprising young man wouldn’t? The only problem with friends was the ones who didn’t like you. There was one friend in particular, Holly, who would spread rumors about him, claimed to have had him come on to her while he was drunk at a party they had both attended.

Learning about the rumors, the disgust, the anger, was comparable to the shame he was feeling sinking into his couch. They were talking about him behind his back, making things up just to discredit him. He skimmed the piece. All he understood was that they’d published his diagnoses, mentioned it more than once that he had a volatile personality disorder (which was moronic because he wasn’t fucking borderline, he was histrionic, there’s a difference) and the big old OCD and the great beaming psychosis-NOS. They declared he was criminally insane. He wanted to eat the magazine so he wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. This was so terribly unprofessional.

Instead, he closed the pages and stacked it where it belonged. He thought about the long list of people that hated him, about who would bring the magazines. He stood up to face to refrigerator. He didn’t keep much around the house but there might have been some take out that had been rotting in his fridge for months waiting for him. When he opened the door it was empty except for a bottle of ketchup. He closed it and stared for a moment before he realized something was different.

There was a note on the door. It was signed with a heart and written in quick, lazy handwriting. From Emmet, no doubt. He read it, it said something about how Emmet would pay for his utilities until he could get a job again or get on disability, that everything was going to be okay. He said that he hoped Briar liked the magazines.

Oh. Briar took the note down from the fridge and tossed it in the trash. He went back to the couch, checking to make sure his phone was charged enough for a call.

He dialed the only number he could think of. On the other end, a rough voice picked up. “Hello?” Briar opened his mouth but before he could speak he was interrupted by the answering machine. “Haha, fooled you! You’re talking to a machine. But that’s okay machines need love too. If you don’t know what to do after the beep, well, google it.”

The tone rang and Business sat there for a few seconds, breathing into the phone before hanging up. He gave a bitter thought about how creepy that must be, to leave a silent message like that, then backtracked and hoped Bad Cop would understand.

With the lack of anything better to do Briar took his sedative and crawled into bed at eight thirty with no dinner and no one to sleep next to, wake up for, or even say goodnight to.


	2. Chapter 2

In the morning Briar takes his pills. He takes them with orange juice only, never with water because they stick to his throat that way and something about the juice makes them go down stronger. Often, that’s his breakfast. After that, he watches the morning news. Not much has been going on since he got out of the hospital. Everything seemed just as cheery as it had been when he was in the height of his career, hiding what happened behind lies and a smile. Not lying, exactly, but exaggerating, misreporting.

It had been months now. He’d filed for disability, but he knew it wouldn’t be accepted. He had to change his fucking name to be taken seriously but that wasn’t anything he’d be willing to stoop so low to do. He let himself sit away and rot. Even after the fines there was still enough money left to pay for himself living a minimal, sad life of decency but no luxury. He didn’t need Emmet’s help.

Most days he had therapy. There were two therapists he was seeing, one for dialectical behavioral therapy and the other for a general psychotherapy, then there was the group he was in, another kind of behavioral therapy. It got him out of the house. He didn’t make friends in the group and his therapists weren’t good company, but it got him out of the house.

Every evening he called Bad Cop again. He stopped leaving quiet messages after the first night. He thought that maybe, Bad Cop had changed his number. But if he did then why was his answering machine the same? The only solution was that he was ignoring Briar’s calls. It was understandable, that’s what Briar would do if he were in Bad’s situation, but he still wished Bad Cop would fucking pick up.

\---

Today’s therapy is dialectical behavioural therapy, DBT. It was for the whole lot of his illnesses. He sat in a room with his therapist for an hour and a half and talked to her about what he’d been doing. They’d do exercises. Sometimes there would be a work sheet. Sometimes there would be homework.

“I’ve been calling Bad Cop,” Briar said. He knew it would piss her off so he said it every week. He was sitting cross legged on the floor, his back resting on the couch he should be sitting on. He did it that to piss her off too, a woman named Deborah something-or-other. It only mattered when he wrote her the check for the month.

She breathed through her nose. “And why did you do that?”

“Because I’d like to speak with him.”

“Why would you like to speak with Bad Cop?”

“I miss him.”

“Briar, where do you think this is coming from? It sounds like you’re making emotional decisions.”

Briar stopped talking for a while, taking his phone out to play games. Often these sessions were filled with silence.

“You can’t let your emotional mind win,” Deborah went on when it was obvious Briar wasn’t going to answer. “You can’t let your rational mind win either. Think with your wise mind, Briar. Think wisely about this. Do you think calling Bad Cop every day, knowing he won’t pick up, is a good idea?”

Briar stood up. He smiled at her.

“Thank you, but I’m going to leave,” he said.

“You can’t keep running from your problems. You cannot do that, you are going to end up in the hospital again. Everyone wants you there, they shouldn’t have let you out when they did.” Deborah didn’t sound concerned, she sounded annoyed. Frustrated. Hospitalization was a threat that had been strangling Briar since he’d gotten out and stumbled his way back into the world.

“I’ll see you on Thursday,” Briar went on, heading for the door. He opened it, kept smiling over his shoulder. “Ta-ta.”

He closed the door behind him and made it to the bathroom, washing his hands just to transition from this life of doctors into the world of the every day. As he left therapy he dialed Bad Cop’s number. It was far too early for him to be calling but he tried anyway, just to listen to the familiar rattle.

“Hello? Haha, fooled you, you’re talking to a machine. But that’s-” He hung up before he could hear it all. He took the bus home.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The hospital had been very calm. There was no stimulus in there. He kept a journal documenting all of his thoughts but after a while even that lay untouched, empty and scattered like the rest of the damn place. He didn’t have any roommates and during room time he read one of the books he’d found out in the common area. It was about the Old West, a gun slinger. A bit violent to find in a hospital like this, but he kept it hidden and no one knew he had it until he turned it in at the end of his stay.

“Draw a bridge,” the nurse said. Briar had been there for a month and he still didn’t know his name. He was flamboyantly gay and wore pinks cribs instead of green or blue. Everyone hated him. “On one side is where you were when you got here. On the other side is where you want to be when you get out.”

Briar drew a bridge of teeth, sopping guts and beating hearts on one end and fire on the other. That night he was given two anti psychotic pills instead of one.

\---

Ring. Ring. “Hello?”

Briar waited for the rest of the message. He waited ten, twenty, thirty seconds. He waited for the Terminator reference, the snide remark, Bad Cop’s gruff voice laughing into the phone.

“Business?”

“Oh god,” Briar said and hung up.

At that point calling Bad Cop was just routine. There wasn’t any thought behind it. The repetition of the message was just as soothing as the repetition of tapping his hands on the counters in counts of three. Part of the repetition was Bad Cop ignoring him.

A few minutes later, his phone lit up and started buzzing. Incoming call from Bad Cop. Briar held his breath and picked up.

“Hello?” he said. Silence.

“Business,” Bad Cop said. Silence. “I’m not supposed to be talking to you but you keep calling.”

“I’m sorry,” was all Briar could think to say.

“What do you want?”

Briar hadn’t ever thought this far ahead. “I want to see you.” Silence.

“I live in the same place, you just had to stop by.”

He hadn’t even thought of that. Briar floundered, wanting to just hang up and forget this ever happened, go back to calling Bad Cop every night and not getting an answer.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Briar finally said.

“I’ll be around.”

Silence. Bad Cop was the one to hang up. Briar turned off the television and took his medicine like clockwork, falling asleep in his underwear on top of the blankets, holding on\to a pillow as if it were his lover while he slept.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day was his group therapy. He had a binder that he conveniently forgot at home, he didn’t want to drag it to Bad Cop’s house and have to admit to how fucked he was. He fidgeted through the meeting, didn’t share his homework, sat on his hands to keep himself from shaking.

The man leading the group, Erik, asked Briar to stay a bit afterwards and tell him what was wrong but Briar promised to call, leaving before Erik could say anything else to him. He took the bus to Bad Cop’s place, playing through the conversation in their head. He felt like he couldn’t breath. He could almost hear Bad Cop’s voice.

He imagined Bad Cop punching him. He imagined him crying and sobbing at Briar’s feet. He imagined him bringing Briar inside and shooting him with the gun that he kept under his pillow. He couldn’t stop playing through the situation and almost missed his stop, narrowly managing to ring for the driver to stop.

He walked a few blocks. Bad Cop had been living in the same apartment for years, a small place where he’d lived alone. He never seemed to date anyone. Briar thought he wasn’t interested, but that was just speculation. There were plenty of reasons Bad Cop wouldn’t have had a partner.

He didn’t even realize that he had arrived until he was standing in front of the door. He knocked and waited. Bad Cop opened the door. He was still wearing his glasses, Briar looked at his reflection in them. He was wearing a t-shirt with a beer label on it and jeans.

“Come in,” Bad Cop said after too many pounding heartbeats had passed. Bad Cop always bragged about how he could smell the fear when he was torturing the Master Builders. Briar wondered if he could smell it now. “Good made some, ah, scones if you want any.”

“Good?” Briar asked.

Bad Cop looked down. He motioned to the couch and Briar sat. His apartment was scarce, stifling despite its emptiness. A half drunk bottle of whiskey was on the counter. Bad Cop picked it up and put it in the cupboard.

“Would you like a drink?” Bad Cop said.

“No, I’d like to know what the hell you’ve been doing.” It hit him like a wave, the anger. If anyone would be crying, screaming, punching, it would be him. He grit his teeth and went through his crisis plan. Get water, read a book. He couldn’t do any of that here.

“I was in the hospital for a while,” Bad Cop said. “Like you. I must have gotten out later, though. I had thirty missed calls when I got out.”

“So what’s the diagnosis?”

“Dissociative identity disorder, substance abuse, autism, post-traumatic stress disorder. It goes on.” Bad Cop spoke plainly, the same cold tone he kept before, when their relationship was nothing more than professional. “Don’t tell me yours. I don’t want to know.”

Briar kept his mouth shut. Bad Cop stood in front of him on the couch. He took off his glasses and for one of the first times in his life Briar saw Bad Cop’s eyes. Not Good’s, crinkled around the edges from smiling, but Bad Cop’s. They were dark, almost black, and tired.

“Tell me more. About everything.”

Bad Cop laughed, a little grunt and a smile. “Why?”

“I missed you.”

Bad laughed again. “Yeah fucking right.” He paused but began speaking regardless. “They kept trying to integrate me. Another alter showed up, a bad one. He never behaves, gets us into shit. Good came back, I guess. It was hectic, I don’t remember much. They put me through an alcoholics program, got me sobered up.” He paused to swallow and put his glasses back on. “Nothing’s sticking because of the trauma. You fucked me up, sir.”

“I’m sorry,” Briar said, hollow.

“No you’re not.”

Briar stood up, clenched his fists. He shouldn’t have come here.

“Look, I am. I am really, really-” Bad Cop put his hand on Briar’s face. Briar stepped closer to Bad Cop. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. This wasn’t supposed to go this way. “If I fucked you up so badly then-” And this time Bad Cop kissed him.

Briar knew this. He knows sex. He knew how to fuck when he was depressed, how to get it up when he felt empty inside. Sex was attention was love. He followed Bad Cop into bed. Their love making was slow, burning, no passion, no intimacy, just sex for the sake of sex. Briar hadn’t expected to stay this late. It was three in the afternoon but as they lay side by side, holding on to each other as they came down from their rush, Briar found himself falling asleep.

When he woke up Bad Cop was still practically naked, only wearing his boxers. He was smoking by the window. Briar could see his scars, on his thighs from self harm and on his shoulder, from when Briar had lost his temper and stabbed him with a pair of scissors. Trauma. No wonder.

“You need to leave,” Bad Cop said. He put the cigarette out on the window sill and gestured to Briar’s clothes. “Get out of my home.”

Briar sat up, tried to speak. Nothing came out. He could make excuses on why he should stay. He could make them both dinner, all he really knew how to make was spaghetti and if Bad Cop didn’t have the ingredients he could go buy some and

“Business get out. I don’t want you here. Stop calling me, don’t come back, just fucking leave me alone. This was a mistake.”

Briar got out of Bad Cop’s bed and put on his clothes.

“I thought this would work but I was wrong,” Bad Cop continued. “I was so wrong. I want what we had before but… But we’re never getting that back.”

“I know,” Briar said.

“I hate you for what you did to me. To us.”

“I know.”

“For what you made us do.”

“I know.”

“Get out.”

Briar went for the door. He turned back, once, to catch Bad Cop lighting another cigarette, then closed the door behind him. He walked to the bus stop and sat there, waiting for the next bus to arrive. He thought about calling his therapist, one of them at least. He thought about running out into traffic and hoping someone was stupid enough not to stop. He thought about killing himself. He thought about self harming.

He pushed it all down. He got on the bus when it arrived. He took his medication like clockwork and crawled into bed. He had gotten what he wanted, some time with Bad Cop, but that wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Briar Robert Business fell asleep, a pillow in his arms. The world around him was cold and quiet and as he slept he dreamed of a time before this, when things went right and in his heart he felt regret.

 


End file.
